I love analyzing match videos, so I’m going to give my input about why I believe that this match shouldn’t have been replayed.
First off, I think we can rule out the claim that the dislodged shield interfered directly with 1477's robot. At around 77 seconds left in the match, 1477 picked up a boulder and held on to it for the rest of the time they were defending their courtyard. When they left their courtyard, if you slow it down with around 20 seconds remaining, you can see that when they hit the secret passage berms the boulder fell from their robot and became stuck under their frame. It seems pretty clear from the slow-motion that it was NOT the shield that caused the boulder to become dislodged. In fact, 1477 does even make any significant contact with the shield after it has come loose. After 1477 got off of that boulder, they became stuck on another boulder while trying to cross the outerworks. There is no indication from this video angle that the shield had any material impact on 1477 becoming stuck on either boulder or preventing them from making it to their batter.
There are also minor arguments like after 1477 got off the boulder they had to go around the fallen shield which slowed them down. I would counter this by saying that once they got off the boulder it was left directly in front of their robot. Even if the shield wasn't there, they could either go around the boulder or risk getting stuck on it again.
That leaves what I believe is the only major argument (which was already mentioned above) that the shield hindered the returning of the boulders by the human player. While a boulder does hit the protruding shield (47 seconds) and another boulder hits that one (44 seconds), only one of those boulders was scored by the red alliance. The 2nd boulder was picked up (23 seconds) and scored by 67 on the blue alliance. That other boulder that 3476 picked up (27 seconds) looked to have gotten there by a bad throw of the human player, not because of the shield as the person above suggested. So, did that single boulder (the first one) change the outcome of the match? I think that it is unlikely. Even if the red alliance didn’t get that “unfair” boulder, they had multiple extra they could’ve used on that side of the field instead.
To conclude, this situation was looks extremely close to being a field fault and it could have easily been a field fault if any of numerous situations had occurred (like the robot becoming stuck on the shield, the shield dislodging earlier, a robot tried to cross that defense). Though, from my review, I don’t feel like the shield had any material impact on the game which is why I think the call seemed reasonable.
Wow, that was a lot. Time to go back to studying
